Cultural Competence and Ethics Community Research and Intervention Methods Before Referencing
Research methods, definitions of community, and informed consent processes are all marked by complexities in knowledge, culture, changing conditions and other factors, that present challenges to the field of community interventions and research approaches. Please discuss several of these complexities and offer a reflection on the strengths or weaknesses of various ways to deal with them.
According to Meredith Minkler, Nina Wallerstein, and Budd Hall's text entitled Community-Based Participatory Research for Health, research initiatives designed to promote community health must take into consideration the unique needs of the population the study is designed to address. Attempting to eradicate AIDS in a population of IV drug users may require different forms of preventative care than a gay population, for example. Ethnic groups may put up cultural barriers to talking about sexually transmitted diseases and sexuality in general that researchers may not initially comprehend. An anti-diabetes initiative that does not factor in the economics of the community, or its tastes in food will have little value, even if the treatment...
One great advantage of community-based participatory research is its specificity.
The authors make the more controversial claim that a research study should directly benefit the subjects of the study, and all of the subjects of the study. A perennial ethical problem with accumulating research data through the use of 'real people' is that the subjects must be able to comprehend and consent to be used as such. They are more likely to do so if they can see the value of the study. But traditional research studies often use other individuals as controls, which may mean denying part of a population with limited access to healthcare potentially life-saving treatments or information. The ethical guidelines about denying care for physicians become murky in such instances (Beauchamp & Childless 2001:7-8). Participatory research is less interested in creating such controls and more interested in community benefits.
One way to alleviate some of the concerns about consent is using researchers with roots in the community, or who can at least speak the community's language to converse to participants in a meaningful fashion.…
